Reflections in the Dark
by hopelily
Summary: In her moments of deepest grief and despair, Holly finds herself looking into the past, her own past.


**Disclaimer:** No, Holly Short and Trouble Kelp aren't mine, but her parents are.

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**Reflections**

_in the_

**Dark**

Holly gathered her things as she got ready to leave Police Plaza. For the last time.

She wondered again whether it was the right thing to do. So much had happened just in the last twenty-four hours that she felt as if she was drowning in it. _I can't deal with Sool right now,_ she thought, _it's too much. _But another part of herself said, just as defiantly, _But don't you remember? You said **you** wouldn't give up. You said you were **different.** If you leave now, what does that make you. A liar? A hypocrite?_

A familiar voice tore Holly from her thoughts, "What are you still doing here? It's late."

"Trouble," she turned around and smiled in spite of herself. She and Trouble had been best friends as children, even though he was much older. She was always trying to catch up, in every way. In a way, she still was. For a moment, she felt a pang of jealousy hit her. He never had to deal with any of it: the stigma, Artemis, Opal Koboi.

"Are you alright, Holly?" he had concern in his eyes.

"I'm not going crazy, Trouble. I know it was always my dream but things change..." she tried to explain but it wasn't so much to Trouble but to herself.

"But you, I never thought you'd change. I never thought that you'd give up." His voice was blank but his words filled her with guilt and disappointment.

"I haven't given up," she said, struggling to keep her voice even. "I just need some time. To think it over. To deal with it."

"The Holly I knew wouldn't have cared what an idiot like Sool thought of her. She would have made his life hell and told him that if anyone was leaving, it'd be him." Trouble countered.

"Yeah? And I'm sure that's really difficult for _you_ to say!" She couldn't restrain herself any longer and the ugliness came out.

"What does it matter? What matters is you just ducking out when we need you the most. I've have never pegged you of all people to just quit at the first sign of difficulty."

His words stung the old scars, the ones that ran too deep. Memories filled her head: her father saying that he loved her and then going and blowing himself up in the middle of a mission, the taunts at the Academy, her own mother telling the council that they couldn't let her baby daughter in the LEP, and Sool's leering face, daring her to disobey. "The first?! What world do you live in, Trouble Kelp?"

Holly stormed out of the room, and out of the building, not once looking back. She strode down the street, too enraged to go home. Instead, she took a different route, one to a place she hadn't been to in the longest time. Her mother's old house.

It stood at the edge of town, a large three-story, but every room of it she hated at that moment. Her own mother who didn't believe in her, who couldn't support her when she need it the most. Resisting the urge to trash every little one of her mother's stupid trinkets, she went inside.

The place was empty, except for the barest of furniture, all her mother's possessions stripped away and given as dictated in her will. Not that Holly would know: she hadn't recieved a single thing.

Her father, her mother, Julius, all gone. What was left for her? Holly willed herself to be stronger than this. It was what she had prided herself on, wasn't it? Being stronger than her push-over, prim and proper mother? Being like her father, once the hero of the LEP?

Where had those days gone when the Shorts were as much of a perfect family as could be? But that was before the great war aboveground, before the Manhatten Project, before her father's top-secret missions. Before Holly decided to join the LEP, before she refused to speak to the mother who used tool in her arsenal to convince (or force) her otherwise.

Her mother was no longer the doting lady she once had been, but a desperate one, desperate to keep her only child at home and away from danger. But she couldn't understand her daughter's need for it, even the danger itself. _But Dad would have_, Holly thought, _if he had been alive_.

But no, he left that night, left and it seemed that he took all of the perfection with him. And it was all at his willing, at his own perverse, logical choice. _It was all his fault_, Holly thought, _Why did he have to go and ruin it all? How could such a seemingly perfect person make such a shameful mistake?_

Holly collapsed on the plastic-covered couch, her anger turning to complete exhaustion...

In her dreams, the face of her father came to meet her. He was as young as the day he died, with a familiar melancholy look in his eyes. Her voice seemed like it wouldn't come and she wanted to shout out, "Dad!"

But he saw her and said, "Just listen. You're angry at me, I know, and you have a right to be. Now, listen because I'm only saying this once: I did what I had to do. You're a lot like me, Holly, and you think what you would've done, I think you'll know why."

"But why?" she whispered, though her lips were not moving. "Why couldn't you have lived, why did you want to die?"

He sighed, "Sometimes you feel like giving up, don't you? Sometimes, when it seems like the whole world's against you, like they're all heartless. Yes, Holly, I knew I was most likely going to die, but no, it wasn't suicide like you thought. I tried to stop the world from becoming a worse place, because I didn't want to give you that world. My beautiful daughter, growing up in a world where she would have to be afraid! Not for anything. The only truth I can tell you is that I did what I had to do and I am glad that if I should die, I would die for a cause I believed in. I do not care if I lived a hundred, five hundred, or a thousand years, if I could have a chance to make a difference."

Holly nodded. At times, she felt exactly that. People wondered why she was so reckless, and that was why. After all, having so long a life and magic, too, what was the use of being cautious?

"I must say, though, I do have one regret. And that is that I never got to see you grow up, that I never got to be part of your life, especially since you've had so much loss. I never got to be the father I envisioned. When you were just a little girl (I don't know if you remember it or not), I used to promise you so many things. I used to promise to take you aboveground for every school vacation, to buy you all the books you wanted, teach how to ride a bike, so many things. But I forgot to live up to my promises.

"But I just want you to know that I love you, so much. Please, don't be angry at me forever. I need to be able to forgive me, in spite of everything I've put you through. I need you to understand because you are growing up to be a carbon copy of myself. Don't make the same mistakes I did, Holly. Don't let me get in the way of your happiness."

He started to fade away. But he couldn't go, not yet, there was so much she need to know, so much to ask. "Dad! Don't go! I need your help! I need to know if I should...?"

"You don't need me anymore, Holly. You thought you did but you don't; you grew up without me, learned to live in the world without me. Look, you are a young woman now, a successful, brave young woman. Make your own choices and I think you'll see that you never really needed me at all.

But, Holly, one more thing: I am so proud of you, my dear daughter."

Holly felt herself drifting out of sleep and when she woke, she couldn't quite remember the dream she'd had. But somehow, she understood.

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A/N: The Manhatten Project was undertaken in the United States during the course of WWII in order to construct the two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. For use in my story, if you didn't catch my drift, Holly's father was ordered to stop this from happening and in the course of it, died, leaving Holly believing that he commited suicide. 

Anyways, that was my longest fic so far, and probably the heaviest one, too. Personally, I'm of mixed feelings about it. I think it was a good idea in conception but it doesn't come out as well as I would hope. Ah well, tell me what you think, anyways? Please, please help me improve it?

Thanks,

Lily

P.S. I'm finally on spring break so expect a few more fics that are currently in progress to come up. And maybe even a full-length one if I'm really feeling brave.


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